Lesson 1: Spiritual
I want to lay a foundation for examining spirituality. Mental activity has broken down to support the competing ideologies in our present social conflict. Although “spirit” has always had a multi-dimensional meaning, I felt it still had the potential to bring together diverse attitudes. The aesthetic seemed able to discuss differences without descending into chaos.
When I started jotting down all the ways the term “spiritual” is used today, I began to question my optimism. People use it to describe anything from being moved emotionally to communicating with God.
Apparently, even most people who claim to be non-religious nevertheless consider themselves to be spiritual. They must have had some significant experiences that they regard as transcending the physical and mental, but which create no desire or need to affiliate with a religious institution.
Some talk about using spiritual exercises from more than one world religion. I have friends who call themselves Hindu Christians or Christian Buddhists. Others use practices from different beliefs but refrain from identifying with any.
Some have self-induced mystical experiences without any ecclesiastical trappings. Others associate spirituality with being compassionate. And others yet think it is simply a matter of responding emotionally to beauty.
Theologians who write about the Future Church Movement predict that our present parochial religious bodies will be replaced eventually by spiritual centers. They believe the key to their success will be welcoming non-religious individuals to share their spiritual thoughts and experiences.
Of course, there are still large numbers who associate spirituality with traditional, orthodox churches. However, I have been amazed recently by how many of these report that the ancient creeds and other traditions no longer accurately express their beliefs.
Despite these many differences, I still see potential in the spiritual dimension of life for resolving our conflicts. It’s at least worth the time to investigate what is going on at a deeper level.
Critical to that study will be what role, if any, the transcendent plays. Right now, I think that might not be an insurmountable difference and well could lead to the creative thought we need.
Next week, I want to begin by looking at the spirit as the life force. That it certainly is its most basic meaning and might well provide the unifying factor in the whole series.
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Pr Fritz i look forward, as ever, to reading and reflecting on (y)our upcoming series.
May i suggest you also incorporate an explication of the differences between soul and spirit.
For me the differences are substantial and of category not degree. As such they are germane whereby the former is grounded in our lived life and the latter as in earth mother goddesses and the latter etheric as in ‘the by and by’ i.e. the sky king father (pls note the respective tenses).
A key challenge IMO in your most respectable topic is that spirituality essentially continues to divorce us from our groundedness.
As Carl S says ‘we are all star stuff’.
For instance, the difference between Social Justice and ‘Heavenly’ justice (heaven/Hell)
‘Do it on the ground while we are still around (V’s Pie in the sky we will get bye and bye) – the band played boggie and the people danced on.
ciao paul
ps spirit as life force is coming close to seeing/saying soul as it is the lived life force IMO. Sprit is more the male abstract strange attractor anchored in the archaic conceptualisation of heaven as distant i.e. Old Testament (possibly this makes sense though i am not a scholar)